blood_magik
Well-Known Member
I had a lesson with the lovely Martin Arnott today - our first official jumping lesson and Beau's second time at Ingliston.
He's a lot better now - he doesn't try to run off in the trot as much and he's starting to work in a nice frame for longer bursts.
I couldn't stop him when he first came over and had to use the wall on several occasions as our brakes had failed.
He's starting to muscle up (yay!) and put on some weight but he has about 50kg still to put on and a lot of growing to do.
Anyways, we got to Ingliston early but faffed about getting tacked up etc so we only had 15 minutes to warm up before our lesson. Beau also decided that he didn't want to stand at the mounting block so that needs to be worked on a bit more. He had been standing quietly for me to mount using a step so maybe we need to stick to just using that. I'm trying to stop bribing him with food - he gets the food after I'm on board at home now rather than once he's stood still.
We started out by discussing our goals (I shared the lesson with my dad and his horse) and Martin set up a small exercise involving a placing pole and a small x-pole. You trotted to it and picked up canter over the pole, then popped the jump before going over another pole 2 strides away. We then had to ride straight through a set of jump wings 7 strides after the x-pole.
We had a baby moment where he stopped to have a good look at the plank that was being used as a placing pole. I should have encouraged him a bit more and he would have popped it first time - it was my fault, and he popped it sweetly on the second attempt, although he wobbled all over the place trying to avoid the ground pole.
Once he understood what he had to do, he just got better and better.
We ended up doing a small course of about 90cms.
We trotted to one (placing pole still there) then 7 strides to two along the back wall. We then came back on ourselves to a 6-stride related distance along the diagonal.
Five was along the other diagonal then a dog-leg, which we (I) struggle with, to six. Seven was a 2-stride double along the other long side then another dog-leg to the last jump.
I made the mistake of pushing him on too much and upset the canter rhythm between 4 and 5 the first time round. I buried him in the fence and really struggled to get the turn to six after that. The second time round was much better thanks to Martin shouting at me to "sit quietly!".
We also had a few issues with the last combination. I could get the two strides in the double but kept burying him in the last fence.
The way Martin explained it was really helpful. I didn't realise just how short a stride I needed to make the 7 comfortably so after the second part of the double, I half-halted and kept asking him to shorten (not sure if I explained it properly - I wasn't to let go after the half halt) and we got the distance spot-on for the last attempt.
The feedback that I got was pretty spot-on. I need to work on:
- not over-folding so I'm not weighing down the horse's shoulder.
- looking up rather than at the ground pole
- keeping the engine running so the power comes from the back end but doesn't go straight out the front (power, not speed)
- straightness (we had a few wobbles over the scary ground pole)
- collecting and lengthening within the canter
unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures or videos as my usual cameraman (dad) was riding with me.
Here's one of him from last week instead with my oldie, Jerry
and this was 3 weeks ago:
Thanks for reading
That actually wasn't very quick, was it?
He's a lot better now - he doesn't try to run off in the trot as much and he's starting to work in a nice frame for longer bursts.
I couldn't stop him when he first came over and had to use the wall on several occasions as our brakes had failed.
He's starting to muscle up (yay!) and put on some weight but he has about 50kg still to put on and a lot of growing to do.
Anyways, we got to Ingliston early but faffed about getting tacked up etc so we only had 15 minutes to warm up before our lesson. Beau also decided that he didn't want to stand at the mounting block so that needs to be worked on a bit more. He had been standing quietly for me to mount using a step so maybe we need to stick to just using that. I'm trying to stop bribing him with food - he gets the food after I'm on board at home now rather than once he's stood still.
We started out by discussing our goals (I shared the lesson with my dad and his horse) and Martin set up a small exercise involving a placing pole and a small x-pole. You trotted to it and picked up canter over the pole, then popped the jump before going over another pole 2 strides away. We then had to ride straight through a set of jump wings 7 strides after the x-pole.
We had a baby moment where he stopped to have a good look at the plank that was being used as a placing pole. I should have encouraged him a bit more and he would have popped it first time - it was my fault, and he popped it sweetly on the second attempt, although he wobbled all over the place trying to avoid the ground pole.
Once he understood what he had to do, he just got better and better.
We ended up doing a small course of about 90cms.
We trotted to one (placing pole still there) then 7 strides to two along the back wall. We then came back on ourselves to a 6-stride related distance along the diagonal.
Five was along the other diagonal then a dog-leg, which we (I) struggle with, to six. Seven was a 2-stride double along the other long side then another dog-leg to the last jump.
I made the mistake of pushing him on too much and upset the canter rhythm between 4 and 5 the first time round. I buried him in the fence and really struggled to get the turn to six after that. The second time round was much better thanks to Martin shouting at me to "sit quietly!".
We also had a few issues with the last combination. I could get the two strides in the double but kept burying him in the last fence.
The way Martin explained it was really helpful. I didn't realise just how short a stride I needed to make the 7 comfortably so after the second part of the double, I half-halted and kept asking him to shorten (not sure if I explained it properly - I wasn't to let go after the half halt) and we got the distance spot-on for the last attempt.
The feedback that I got was pretty spot-on. I need to work on:
- not over-folding so I'm not weighing down the horse's shoulder.
- looking up rather than at the ground pole
- keeping the engine running so the power comes from the back end but doesn't go straight out the front (power, not speed)
- straightness (we had a few wobbles over the scary ground pole)
- collecting and lengthening within the canter
unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures or videos as my usual cameraman (dad) was riding with me.
Here's one of him from last week instead with my oldie, Jerry
and this was 3 weeks ago:
Thanks for reading
That actually wasn't very quick, was it?
